What is a Health & Safety Audit?

A health and safety audit is a systematic review of your workplace or organisation’s health and safety policies, procedures, and practices. It is conducted to identify potential hazards, assess risks, and ensure compliance with relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards. It is an important tool for ensuring that your organisation is providing a safe and healthy workplace for your employees and complying with legal and regulatory requirements.

In the UK, audits usually measure how well a business complies with regulations such as the Health & Safety at Wortk etc. Act 1974 and guidance from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Do I need a Health & Safety Audit?

The short answer is probably yes! Almost every business in the UK is required to manage health & safety, and if you have 5 or more employees you must have a written health & safety policy outlining who is responsible for specific tasks and how risks are managed. This policy should cover staff, contractors, and the general public.

Every business should conduct regular health & safety audits to ensure legal compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. While crucial for high-risk sectors like construction and manufacturing, audits are essential for all, including premises such as office spaces, retail, hospitality, care homes and leisure centres to reduce incidents, prevent heavy fines, and ensure employee and service-user safety.

What does a Health & Safety Audit look at?

It is important to remember that any health and safety auditor is not there to try and ‘catch you out’. They are there to work with you and support you in esuring that your company is a safe and compliant place to work. A typical audit will review a range of areas such as:

• Risk assessments – are they in place, are they reviewed and are they kept up to date?
• Policies & procedures – is there a clear and available health and safety policy?
• Training records – have employees received the correct training, is it documented and kept up to date?
• Accident reporting – are all accidents and near-misses logged and investigated? Do staff understand how to do this?
• Workplace hazards – are all hazards identified and any associated risks minimises? Slips, trips, safe lifting, machinery, fire safety etc.
• Documentation – is documentation clear and up to date? This could include evidence of maintenance, inspections of machinery and working practices, safety controls etc.
• Legal compliance – is the company meeting all UK regulations?

During the audit the auditor will want to look at and review your documents and procedures you have in place. They will also want to interview the staff to ensure they understand what the policies and procedures are and check that they have had an induction and understand  how to stay safe in the workplace. The auditor will also want to inspect the workplace and see how safe it is and how any potential hazards or risks have been identified and managed. All of this allows the auditor to identify any gaps you may have in your health & safety currently and how they can help you to manage and rectify them.

The auditor will provide you with a report containing any recommendations they have and an action plan to help you implement them.

Why you should have a Health & Safety Audit

There are many reasons to have regular health & safety audits of your company.

1. Legal compliance: An audit will help you ensure that you are compliant with the Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and any related regulations. A failure to comply with the regulations can lead to fines, enforcement notices and prosecution from the Health & Safety Executive.
2. Reduce the number of accidents and injuries: An audit should identify any hazards before they cause harm. Preventing accidents protects staff, customers, contractors and visitors to your workplace.
3. Avoid financial loss: accidents in the workplace can lead to increased insurance claims, a loss of productivity, legal costs and increased insurance premiums. Prevention is far cheaper than having to deal with accidents.
4. Improve your business reputation:  Showing you take health & safety seriously gives confidence to your staff, clients and potential investors. Many tenders and contracts now require evidence of robust safety management systems.
5. Continuous improvement: Having an audit helps you to improve workplace culture, track your progress over time and find any weakness that arise in your safety management systems.

How can Safepoint help?

Safepoint likes to work in partnership with companies to help them become fully compliant in all of their Health & Safety systems. We will work with you to identify any risks that your company may have and compile an action plan to help you work through them and manage them. We are here to help you implement new systems, ways of recording and managing site and building safety, we won’t just disappear once the audit has happened and leave you to it, we can support your entire journey to full compliance and a safe working environment.

If you would like to find out more about how Safepoint can help, please get in touch, we would be happy to talk through your requirements and see how we can help.

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